Gerber has no beef with Tauscher, mind you, he just thinks he could do a better job.

“Today, our relationship with government is parent/child,” he wrote. “Too many laws and regulations are ‘Thou shalt do this’ or ‘Don’t do that.’ … I want to change the relationship to adult-adult.”

His announcement cites his experience starting a number of businesses including a $1.2 billion oil fund. And the father of two says his wife’s successful fight against breast cancer has “made us re-evaluate our ‘To Do’ lists.”

There’s no mention in Gerber’s announcement of his status as the local spokesman for the Libertarian Party.

Then again, that may not be a big mystery. There are only 1,543 registered Libertarians in District 10, as of the October registration tally. Republicans, on the other hand, had 108,905 registered voters.

If he were picking a party purely based on the numbers, he should have gone Democrat: They had 150,745 registered voters as October, a 12 1/2 percentage point lead over Republicans.

That doesn’t mean Gerber can’t win. Just look at Democrat Jerry McNerney’s November 2006 win over Republican Richard Pombo in District 11, where the GOP outpaced Democrats by 6 percentage points.

But very few people would consider District 10 anything other than a safe, Democratic seat.